by Susantha Goonatilake
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka
New Series, Vol. 54 (2008), pp. 53-136 (84 pages)
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-- Dharmapala and the Tamil downtrodden, Excerpt from White Sahibs, Brown Sahibs: Tracking Dharmapala, by Susantha Goonatilake
-- Theosophists and Buddhists, Excerpt from White Sahibs, Brown Sahibs: Tracking Dharmapala, by Susantha Goonatilake
-- Tracking Sinhalese Buddhism, Bodh Gaya and Sinhalese, and Allen: British India discovers Buddhism, Excerpt from White Sahibs, Brown Sahibs: Tracking Dharmapala, by Susantha Goonatilake
-- Dodanduwa Sri Piyaratana Tissa Mahanayake Thero, by Memories of Weerasooriya Clan
[ROARING]
[CELESTIAL MUSIC]
[Slartibartfast] Welcome to our factory floor. This is where we make most of our planets, you see.
[Arthur] You're starting up again now?
[Slartibartfast] Good heavens, no! No, the Galaxy isn't nearly rich enough to afford us yet. We've been awakened to perform just one extraordinary function for very special clients from another dimension. It may interest you. There -- in front of us.
[Arthur] The Earth!
[Slartibartfast] Well, the Earth Mark II, in fact. We're making a copy, from our original blueprints.
[Arthur] Are you telling me you originally made the Earth?
[Slartibartfast] Oh, yes. did you ever go to a place ...? I think it was called Norway.
[Arthur] No, I didn't.
[Slartibartfast] Pity. That was one of mine. Won an award, you know. Lovely crinkly edges. I was most upset to hear of its destruction.
[Arthur] YOU were upset?!
[Slartibartfast] Five minutes later, it wouldn't have mattered.
Big cock-up. The mice were furious.
[Arthur] Mice?
[Slartibartfast] Earthman, the planet you inhabited
was commissioned, paid for, and run by the mice. It was destroyed five minutes before the completion of the purpose ...
for which it was built. We have to build another one.
[Arthur] Mice?
[Slartibartfast] Mind your head. Excuse the mess.
Most unfortunate. A diode blew in one of the life support computers. When we came to revive our cleaning staff, we discovered they'd been dead for 30,000 years. Who's going to clear away the bodies? That's what no one has an answer for.
[Arthur] Mice? Look, are we talking about the same things? Mice are white furry creatures with a cheese fixation ...
women standing screaming on tables in early '60s sitcoms.
[Slartibartfast] Earthman, it is sometimes hard to follow your mode of speech.
I have been asleep inside this planet of Magrathea for ... um ... five million years ...
and know little of these early '60s sitcoms of which you speak.
These creatures you call mice are not quite as they appear.
They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vast hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings.
This business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front.
They have been experimenting on you.
[Arthur] Ahh! No, look, you've got it wrong! It was us! We experimented on THEM! Making them run down mazes, ring bells, eat bits of cheese! And, by analyzing their behavior, we've learned all sorts of things about ourselves!
[Slartibartfast] Such subtlety!
[Arthur] Well ...
[Slartibartfast] Well, how better to disguise their true natures?
How better to guide your way of thinking ...
than to be right down there amongst you?
Suddenly running down the maze the wrong way, eating the wrong bit of cheese, unexpectedly dropping dead of myxomatosis.
Finely calculated, the cumulative effect is enormous.
Just sit ... back ... back.
I must tell you that your planet and people ...
have formed the matrix of an organic computer ...
running a 10-million-year research programme into the ultimate question of Life, the Universe ... and Everything.
They are particularly clever, hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings.
[Tannoy] [Over intercom] Attention! Slartibartfast and the visiting Earth creature report to the work's reception area immediately. Repeat, immediately!
[Slartibartfast] However, in the field of management relations, they're shocking.
[Arthur] Really?
[Slartibartfast] Every time they give me an order ...
I want to jump on a table and scream.
[Arthur] Yes, I can see that would be a problem.
-- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, directed and written by Douglas Adams
Theosophists and Buddhists
Trevithick overstates heavily the influence of Theosophists' ideology including the alleged "Masters" of Blavatsky on the Sinhalese and Dharmapala219. The influence of Buddhist and other South Asian ideas on the Theosophical movement actually preceded their arrival in Sri Lanka. The mystical and irrational magnum opus of Blavatsky Isis Unveiled (1877) claimed to derive Western knowledge from ancient Eastern origins220. He is unaware of current research by Paul Johnson which indicates that the "Masters" of Blavatsky were actually modelled on real persons one of whom was the Sinhalese monk Sumangala221. Trevithick does not mention that the Theosophists had come on bended intellectual knee to Sri Lanka and not the other way around.
It is vital to describe briefly who the Theosophists were.
In his first set of diaries Old Diary Leaves published in 1895, Olcott points to the wide acceptance of Eastern philosophical ideas by the Theosophists. Writing of the first meeting of the founders of the Theosophical Society, Olcott mentions that they were attracted to each other because of a "common sympathy with the higher occult side''222. In the first evening of her meeting with Olcott, Blavatsky and he spoke of spiritualism, Eastern mysticism and about spooks of several nationalities! In 1874, they were involved in seances, discussing tribes of spirits.
Blavatsky pretending to control the occult forces of nature was defending herself from scientists who attacked her. She was attacked for trickery and being a charlatan223. Once she made a photograph disappear from the wall which happening Olcott accepted as true. Olcott even believed that at times Blavatsky went into another world224. Once Olcott mentions admiringly how Blavatsky made a piano rise which became suspended in the air225. Olcott also believed in numerology as evidenced by his references to strange combination of numbers on key dates226. He also readily admits to being involved in occult studies227. Olcott himself had discussions with the alleged Mahatmas of Blavatsky. Further Olcott believed in "the existence of nonhuman races of spiritual beings"228. That there were hardly any differences between him and Blavatsky on the belief in the occult is bluntly stated when he admits to correcting every page of the manuscript of her Isis Unveiled and writing many paragraphs in it229. He also believed that some of the manuscripts were written for her while she was sleeping (by spirits)230. Olcott, in one of his first events in Colombo in 1880, gave a lecture on "The Occult Sciences"231.
The attacks on Blavatsky, especially came from what Olcott variously called "materialistic scepticism", "the materialistically inclined scientists" and "materialistic science"232.
Trevithick distorts the correspondence of Olcott with the monk Piyaratana Tissa233. The text of this correspondence describes the intellectual power relationship that was set up before the Theosophists came to Sri Lanka. It was a relationship of an American student with a Sinhalese guru. Olcott wrote to the monk:
I pass among ignorant Western people as a thoroughly well informed man but in comparison with the learning possessed by my Brothers in the oriental priesthoods, I am as ignorant as the last of their neophytes. What I call wisdom is the thorough knowledge of the real truth of the Cosmos and of man. Where in Christendom can this be learnt? Where is the University? Where the professor? Where the books from which the hungry student may discover what lies behind the shell of physical natures? That divine knowledge is in the keeping of the temples and priests and ascetics of the East -- of despised heathendom. There alone the way to purification, illumination, power, beatitude can be pointed out234.
To you and as you must we turn, and say: "Fathers, brothers, the Western world is dying of brutal sensuality and ignorance, come and help, rescue it. Come as missionaries, as teachers, as disputants, preachers. Come prepared to be hated, opposed, threatened, perhaps maltreated. Come expecting nothing but determined to accomplish every thing!235
If you will persuade a good, pure, learned, eloquent Buddhist to come here and preach, you will sweep the country before you ... I have spoken a little myself on the subject and written and caused to be written much more. But I am so ignorant. We are all so ignorant that I do not dare set myself up as a teacher236. Our [Theosophical] Society is on the basis of a Brotherhood of Humanity. I might admit that it also is a league of religions against the common enemy -- Christianity237.
There is no doubt when Olcott and Blavatsky eventually arrived in Sri Lanka, who their acknowledged intellectual superiors were. On arrival, Olcott describes to the monk Migettuwatte as having "a very intellectual head ... an air of perfect self-confidence and alertness", the "boldest, most brilliant" and according to Olcott originator of the Buddhist revival238. The day after their arrival, Olcott has a series of discussions with a Buddhist monk Sumanatissa "and other sharp logicians" on metaphysical matters239. Olcott very early on in his stay in Sri Lanka also visits the monk Waskaduwe Subhuti to pay his respects240.
On the first day itself of Olcott's arrival, the monk Sumanatissa requests him to write letters to Europeans and "Burghers" asking them to join the Theosophical Society. To these, Olcott gets insulting replies that the recipient Europeans and Burghers had nothing to do with Theosophy or Buddhism. Olcott becomes angry at this and feels used by the monks indicating early on, the social role that Sinhalese Buddhists had laid out for him241. Later in Japan, Olcott acted basically in the same role as an ambassador to Sinhalese Buddhists carrying letters from Sinhalese monks242.
The Buddhists on their part were very selective in embracing the ideas of the Theosophists. Olcott had written to the monk Hikkaduve Sumangala that he wanted to publish a series of English translations of key Buddhist texts. Sumangala was a good linguist who was sought-after by the leading Western orientalists of the day and knew Sinhalese, Pali, Sanskrit, English and French. Sumangala discouraged him pointing out the academic difficulties saying that it was "a matter next to impossibility" to make a translation to English without losing "its energy, sweetness and propriety"243.
As for Dharmapala taking the views of Olcott and Blavatsky as truth the record is just the opposite. Trevithick assumes that ideas of Dharmapala were formed after his coming into contact with them and not through the Buddhist Renaissance of scholar monks and laymen. In fact, the reverse was true244.
Dharmapala was much more deeply influenced by Theosophy than scholarly accounts have allowed. Neglecting those Theosophical influences derives from the allure of a national subjectivity -– specifically Buddhist and Sinhala -– as a tool for interpreting postcolonial Sri Lanka. Such accounts reduce Theosophy to a vehicle for Buddhist reform or limit Theosophy’s influence on Dharmapala’s life to the period between 1891 and 1905, when he left Theosophy behind and became a Buddhist pure and simple. Often they mark the turn at the point when Blavatsky told him to fix his mind on learning Pali or when he fell out with Olcott. For many of the Sinhala Buddhists who joined the Theosophical Society after Olcott’s arrival, what recommended Theosophy was the society’s Western associations and willingness to help the Buddhist cause. For Dharmapala, Theosophy was quite a lot more. He learned how to embody the brahmacarya role by reading Sinnett’s Occult World. The mahatmas (advanced spiritual beings) gave him a compelling example of selfless service. Right up to the end of his diary keeping, he continued to invoke the mahatmas who watched over humanity from their Himalayan retreats. They provided him with examples that advanced spiritual states were possible, and they modeled the service to humankind that he pursued throughout his life.
Theosophy served as an instrument for his own high aspirations and idealism: the content remained largely Buddhist, but the notion that one could aspire to higher states of consciousness came from the mahatmas, who had themselves achieved those states. In contrast with the low spiritual aspirations of local monks, the mahatmas gave him a paradigm for his perfectionism. Theosophy gave him a rationale for carrying Buddhism to the West. Theosophy taught him that doing so was an act of the highest wisdom (parama vijnana). Summing up his life just before his death, he focused on people who had shaped his career; two were his parents and two Theosophists:Sadhu! Sadhu!! Buddhists of Japan, China, Tibet, Siam, Cambodia, Ceylon & Burma are dead. The germ of Bodhi was impregnated in my heart by my father. The germ of renunciation was impregnated by my Mother, and the Devas induced Mrs. Mary Foster of Honolulu to help me. The path of perfection was shown to me by Mme. Blavatsky in my 21st year. (Diary, December 20, 1930)...
When Sinhalas today say that Buddhism is not itself a “religion,” they “overcode” other religions. By claiming that Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion, they gain a familiar advantage: “If Buddhism is not a religion like Christianity, Hinduism or Islam, that leaves open the possibility that it moves on a higher plane of generality, a more exalted plane.” Buddhists gain another advantage in the bargain, subsuming mere religions under their wing. Gombrich and Obeyesekere write that Buddhism may have learned this trick from Theosophy. The present chapter confirms their speculation by tracing the Buddhist “not a religion” argument to Theosophy. There are other discourses and practices that modern Buddhism owes to Theosophy. The additive nature and transidiomatic diction of Theosophy allowed Dharmapala to move casually between subject positions that could be Buddhist, Theosophist, or both. To the extent that Dharmapala was a Buddhist universalist, he was so because he was first a Theosophical universalist....Had I remained in the T.S. [Theosophical Society] I don’t know what I would have been today. I would have studied Theosophical literature and become half Vedantin, half Buddhist, or become a chela and [line buried in crease o page]… and work in the Theosophical Society carrying out the wishes of the Theosophical leaders, or become the general Secretary of the Buddhist Section. I would have had a larger field to work with friends all over the Theosophical world. But my impulse and wisdom carried me towards the Path of Samma sambodhi. (Sarnath Notebook no. 53)
The problem here is that after his turn back to Buddhism, he continued to speak regularly in a Theosophical idiom and hold to a set of Theosophical practices. Phrases such as “samma sambodhi” resonate with both Buddhism and Theosophy...
The conventional treatment of Dharmapala’s Theosophy suffers from two misreading. The first –- that he gave up his commitment to Theosophy sometime between 1891 and 1905 -– simply ignores the facts. It is true that he sometimes said things that support the two-part model. Usually he attributed the transition to Blavatsky’s counsel, but sometimes he took the arrival at Bodh Gaya as critical, as when he noted, ”I came to India first because I was a Theosophist, and I came to Buddha Gaya as a Buddhist” (Memorandum to Diary of 1919). In other places he attributed the break to Olcott’s disrespect for the relic that he had given him. In any case, what he abandoned was the Theosophical Society; he did not abandon Theosophy as a philosophy of spiritual advancement but held on to a belief in the mahatmas, dhyana meditation, and Blavatsky’s teachings till the end of his life. His alienation was alienation not from Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society but from Annie Besant’s. She took Theosophy in a Hinduized direction, but Dharmapala never left the Blavatsky’s Theosophy. Besant’s Theosophy left him. To complicate things, he was reconciled with Besant in 1911 and rejoined the Indian Theosophical Society in 1913, even while railing against her betrayal of the society’s commitment to Buddhism...
-- Chapter 1: Dharmapala as Theosophist, from Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World, by Steven Kemper
Olcott had to get the approval of local Buddhists for any serious statements of doctrine that he made. Although he wrote a Buddhist catechism it was only issued after approval by Buddhist monks. Olcott found getting approval from Buddhist monks was not easy. The draft for his catechism was gone through sentence by sentence and monks refused to approve it unless changes were made245.
Olcott had misinterpreted the concept of Nirvana at which stage Sumangala wished to withdraw his approval of the text and so Olcott changed it246. Sumangala was careful to see the limitations of the catechism saying that it was only "information to beginners"247. On a number of occasions, the freedom of Olcott to give his own meaning to Buddhism was frustrated. Significantly in 1885, some Buddhists were eager to burn Olcott's Buddhist catechism248.
Although going by the name Theosophical "The Buddhist Theosophical Society" (BTS) which was formed with the help of Olcott after leading local monks involving the Buddhist resistance became its members was not a Theosophical society but clearly only a Buddhist society. Another society more in keeping with Theosophical perspectives called the Lanka Theosophical Society was ignored by Sinhalese and quickly atrophied and died. Olcott admits that the Sri Lanka Theosophical Society was actually composed of Buddhists249.
Olcott describes how Migettuwatte on hearing of whose debates with Christians that Olcott first got interested in Sri Lanka while in New York, later went against Olcott's position including "a venomous attack on the Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society and myself [Olcott]" indicating again the nature of the relationship between Sinhalese Buddhists and the Theosophists, namely that the former was using the latter for their own purposes. Olcott complained that Migettuwatte tried his best to crush his Theosophy250. Olcott became worried that the Venerable Sumangala was becoming critical of Olcott's brand of Buddhism250.
Many monks and laymen were sceptical about Theosophy. Olcott admitted that only one monk in entire Sri Lanka believed in the central pillar of Theosophy namely the existence of their Mahatmas. A close associate of Olcott Valigama Sumangala openly denied their existence. The key associates of Olcott namely Migettuwatte Gunananda (reading whose debates Olcott first came to Sri Lanka) and Anagarika Dharmapala became open critics of Theosophy252. The situation came to such a head that Dharmapala wanted to remove the tag "Theosophy" from the BTS and Hikkaduwe Sumangala demanded to resign from the Socicty253.
Dharmapala's relations with Theosophists in Colombo had begun to sour when he argued for removing the word "Theosophical" from the Buddhist Theosophical Society in 1897-8. By 1905 he declared that no Buddhist could be a Theosophist. But he remained entangled with Theosophy and Theosophists for decades, a continuity usually overlooked by focusing on his life in Sri Lanka alone. When Olcott established the Buddhist Theosophical Society in Colombo, D. B. Jayatilaka became a member, serving as principal first of Dharmaraja College in Kandy and later of Ananda College in Colombo. He founded the Young Men's Buddhist Association and led the temperance movement, giving him a base of influence parallel to, and separate from, the Maha Bodhi Society. When the Hewavitarne family went to court to recover the Rajagiriya school from local Theosophists, Jayatilaka became a defendant in the case.84 By 1906 Dharmapala saw that he had other Buddhist enemies: "Jayatilaka, Mirando, Wickramaratna, H. S. Perera & W. A. de Silva are in league and are conspiring to destroy me" (Diary, April 20, 1906). It is unclear whether the "one stupid Buddhist" mentioned in a later passage from the diary is Jayatilaka, but hostility between Dharmapala and the Colombo Theosophists had a personal basis as much as an ideological one:Since last September I have been trying to make the local Theosophists see the danger [because of the heterodox views of the Buddhist Catechism]; they pooh-poohed me. The high priest remained indifferent, and the foolish Theosophists circulated 80,000 copies of the two Supplements agst me personally .... One stupid Buddhist will cause distruction [sic] to thousands. (Diary, May 25, 1906)
A libel case followed in 1909, and he wrote that he was prepared to pay the damages discussed by Jayatilaka (Diary, July 27, 1909).
-- Chapter 1: Dharmapala as Theosophist, from Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World, by Steven Kemper
Olcott summarised the situation when he said "Although Branches (of the BTS) which we organized in 1880 are still active .... it is altogether within the lines of Buddhism ........ When they [the Sinhalese] speak of themselves as Branches of our Society, it is always with this reservation, that they do their best for Buddhism and acknowledge the President-Founder as their principal advisor and leader"254.
The differences and tensions between Buddhism and theosophy increased further as Dharmapala was working to introduce Buddhism to India255. Olcott's initiative in the international Buddhist scene became less. His "International Buddhist League" had no success while Maha Bodhi Society initiated by Dharmapala with Olcott as its director and adviser grew in comparison256.
With the tension between them, Dharmapala distanced himself from Olcott. The latter resigned from the Maha Bodhi Society. Dharmapala suggested that Olcott do more for Buddhism which included abandoning Theosophy activities and giving full attention to Buddhism. In 1898, Dharmapala proposed to drop the names Theosophical and to change the name of the Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society to simply Colombo Buddhist Society257.
Soon Dharmapala resigned from the Theosophical Society claiming "as a Buddhist, I sever my connection with the Pantheistic Theosophical Society"258. On the following day Sumangala pointed out 17 instances of deviation from Buddhism in Olcott's latest edition of his catechism saying "Such an uncalled for attack on Buddhism ... we could expect only from an enemy of our religion"259. Sumangala now resigned from the Theosophical society. Alarmed, Olcott negotiated with Sumangala and published a new edition of the catechism from which the offending parts were removed. Dharmapala gave the final blow saying "Although he [Olcott1 became a Buddhist he does not seem to have grasped the fundamentals of Buddhism"260.
Renaissance Persons
The Sinhalese Buddhist monks of the 19th and 20th centuries had many of the characteristics of the pioneers of the European Renaissance as they developed contacts around the globe and looking at the world with openness and curiosity. Ven. Subhuti's intellectual contacts extended from Western scholars through Thailand to Japan. He was the one of the first people in Sri Lanka to have an electric torch, a wrist watch, an electric bell and a phonograph and he had a collection of exotic plants including from Denmark. For Western scholars, he identified on a map ancient states that are now defunct. He lent his mind to decipher the Asokan Brahmi script261. Subhuti's Temple had monk, students from Burma, Cambodia, Thailand and China. He immersed himself fully with the religious controversies in Sri Lanka at the time lending his extensive knowledge of those who debated with the Christians262.
The scholar monks of Sri Lanka on the 19th and early 20th century carried a very broad view of learning. In addition to knowledge of the literature and language of Pali, Sanskrit, Sinhala and Prakrit, some of them studied Western languages. Some studied ayurveda, as some of their forefathers did for two millennia, others, subjects like statuary, architecture and astrology -- the last, one should note also having aspects of astronomy embedded in it. They were using, as Guruge who published their collective correspondence remarked, in some of their studies the comparative method as they compared in literature, grammar, religion, philosophy and history, text with text, and commentary with commentary, theory with theory. Whereas Western scholars "expected religious conservatism and narrow mindedness, they were confronted with an amazing width of vision and an unbelievably refreshing liberality'"263.
Through their contacts, they kept abreast with the progress of Oriental Studies in Europe and America as also with other Asian countries. They helped Western scholars keep in touch with Asian scholars. They corrected errors in the translations done by Europeans264. At one stage, the monk Polwatte Buddhadatta counted such scholar monks to be 40 in number but adding that there were many he did not count in this list. The intellectual base of Sinhalese monks was, therefore, high and predated the arrival of the alleged "Protestant" influences264.
Dharmapala, an outcome of the scholar monks' intellectual base was well read in the sciences and modern technology. Here, he had a forward-looking attitude and denounced the anti-industrial attitude of Gandhi saying that one cannot use the spinning wheel and the bullock cart to compete in the modern age. Quoting the Buddha, he denounced the irrational, especially "astrology, occultism, ghostology and palmistry"267.
The relationship of this set of broadminded monks driven by a local cultural logic with the alleged "Protestants" such as Olcott and Blavatsky with their irrational mysticisms was one of the Theosophists always bowing to them in matters relating to Buddhism's core ideas. The Theosophists had begun their correspondence with the Sinhalese monks after seeing a report of the Panadura debates. When the Theosophists began their Journal in 1879, Olcott invited contributions from Mohotivatte and Hikkaduwe. Sinhalese reformers by that time had reached out to the world -- the opposite of Theosophist influence on Buddhism268.